An 11-year-old boy has stunned Japan by throwing himself under a train in an effort to prevent the imminent closure of his school, pleading in his suicide note for the merger to be cancelled.

The 11-year-old threw himself in front of a speeding express service at an Osaka station one afternoon, and died instantly despite the best efforts of the driver to brake.

The boy, who died in his school uniform and left his rucksack on the platform, left little doubt as to the reasons for his suicide – he left a note in his bag saying “please, in exchange for my little life, cancel the school merger.”

According to the local education authority, the Osaka elementary school he attended was due to close in April, as part of a plan to merge it with another local school.

In days prior he had reportedly been complaining that “nobody listens to our feelings when our school is about to be destroyed” and asking that the merger be cancelled.

He also emailed his 47-year-old mother telling her he loved her just prior to his death – although she seems to display an admirable sense of responsibility in her response:

“It is regrettable that I didn’t appreciate the extent of my son’s feelings. I don’t want other children to think they can change the world through suicide, though.”

Japan Rail reports 32 trains were delayed by the boy’s death, inconveniencing some 14,000 commuters. They do not say whether they will follow their occasional practice of billing the family of the bereaved for the disruption.

Even against the backdrop of Japan’s excessively rich suicide culture, the notion of a schoolboy killing himself to protest a school merger has struck many Japanese as being as absurd as it is disturbing:

“What a thing to give your life for.”

“And by killing himself he actually hastened his school’s closure…”

“This is crazy…”

“Too sad.”

“I can’t help but think there was a parenting issue here.”

“There must be something more to this?”

“Does a 5th elementary schooler bother about this stuff? Was he influenced by something?”

“Only the adults around him could possibly have caused him to do this.”

“Who kills themselves over this nonsense? It’s absurd.”

“The mass media do tend to affirm this kind of suicide terrorism rather than condemn it, though.”

“Actually this kid was smart – he realised kids killing themselves always exerts a big influence, and tried to use his own death to accomplish what he wanted.”

“By stopping 32 trains he did at least change the world in a big way.”

“You’d think the parents or teachers were the ones putting ideas in his head, as no kid is going to care about this stuff that much otherwise.”

“Possibly if the teachers were really making a fuss about the merger?”

“What kind of kid writes ‘my little life’ anyway? He was put up to this.”

“He wrote ‘merger’ in hiragana. You’d think he’d at least know the right kanji for that?”

“Right. Feels like someone had him write that.”

“You’d think he was born in the Meiji or Taisho eras, not Heisei.”

“Probably just the school making a huge fuss and giving the kids the impression it would be the end of the world if the school closed.”

“His mother is too cruel. She just denied his dying wish completely. I blame the family.”

“Hey brat, you just inconvenienced 14,000 people with your dumb little stunt!”

“What were those teachers up to…”

“This is moronic. This kid didn’t even realise nobody would go along with this? Who in their right mind is going to start giving in to the demands people make in their suicide notes? I’m surprised at how on the mark his mother is under the circumstances.”

“Well, there is no way they can stop the merger now. It would just give more little kids the delusion that they can top themselves and blackmail people into going along with their selfish little wants.”

When you commit suicide on the train tracks, it's very selfish as you are disrupting the lives of many. It's a MAJOR inconvenience!

@Majolica
Being snowed in is an act of Nature - not a man made one. Comparing that to this is like comparing apples to oranges.
And I'm sure all of us are rich enough to afford a cab regardless of where we live :\

More or less all japs actually. They can't see beyond their flat little noses. You can see that clearly in the way they try to deal with their historical wrongs: "We gave you some money, we said sorry, now fuck off" attitude, and also how they scream 'discrimination' at the world all the while they can't even deal with 3% minority population half of whom are culturally, socially, and racially at least half japanese.

Funny little island monkeys deserve some rape coming their way. I'd say let the chinese give them what they deserve.

In response to Anon 22:15 he's not far off the mark they are in fact one of the last truly racist shitstains of the world. They have plenty going for them atm. They tried to take over the world got their collective asses handed to them. The ones that did that ass handing rebuilt their shitty little country and what do they do? Whine and complain about the disruption of their harmony. Their harmony disrupted the rest of the damn world with THEIR selfishness. The world would be a better place without people with your mindset and definitely would be better if we didn't have to deal with the mindset rampant all through Japan.

Japanese don't use the word "selfish". I read the original in 2ch, and found that he use "我儘".
我儘 usually has nothing to do with whether the one will acquire benefit or not.
According to dictionary, 我儘 means "headstrong； incorrigible； mutinous； selfish； wayward； willful".

'Do whatever you want... as long as it doesn't harm ('negatively affect') anyone else.' This negatively affected a lot of people.

Even if the intention was positive, something is condemned or not based on the means. To draw an example, it doesn't matter how pure or noble your demands are if you're threatening to kill innocent hostages every hour if they're not met.

It's sad that he killed himself over this, really an 11 year old should not even be thinking about suicide.

Now this really makes me sick."They do not say whether they will follow their occasional practice of billing the family of the bereaved for the disruption."
To those who think his family should be billed.
Boo fucking hoo you were inconvenienced this family lost their son so stop fucking bitching.

Personally I'd like to have ten minutes alone with anyone who believes his family should be made to suffer farther simply because they were inconvenienced.

tell that to the doctor who couldn't arrive on time to save a patient. or the sick who didn't arrive on time to the hospital. or perhaps the salaryman who was fired after this and decided to commit suicide. or the person who lost an important job interview which could have helped paying the bills for his ill parent and which ultimately died. or...
the kid was selfish even in his decision to die. he could at least have thrown himself off a cliff.

What kind of doctor rides a train like a poor person?
As for the others including the salary man's boss are people sometimes late that's a fact of life shit happens deal with it you fucking cunt.
Seriously a brainless and unaccommodating boss like that needs a good and long ass kicking like the one Rodney King got.
Seriously you are a sick and twisted piece of excrement to feel this way about this unfortunate child.

He is a kid, A fuckin kid. Just like other kids, his mental and rationalizing skill is not fully developed yet.

I blame his parents for not realize how deep the kid distraught by the thought of his school no longer the same, I mean there should be sign like suddenly he turn more quite, be more passive, eating less/more than usual, stop meeting with friends, talking how sad his current school situation.

People do not kill themselves out of nowhere, most of the time there are sign indicating that they are depressed and going to kill themselves.

I think it's a great idea to discourage people from throwing themselves in front of trains. What you end up with are (1) a dead person, (2) late passengers, (3) a traumatized train driver, (4) a family that lost a son and (5) a loss for the train company. Everybody loses.

It's a shame anyone thinks they should kill themselves, suicides are terrible and unnecessary. But the fact is that people do kill themselves. If they do, please let them hang, drown or starve themselves rather than crowbarring their impact on the world.

Sending the bill to the family should not be seen as a penalty of making the family suffer. I don't believe penalties should exist to make people suffer. Penalties should exist to prevent people from causing harm.

I think the burden the will put on their families makes them think twice before throwing themselves in front of a train.

Okay, let me point out the major flaw in what Anon (18:24) said for stupid people like Benoist and Anon (02:56)

Dead people do not care for the living.

What Anon (02:56) basically said is "Hey, you are inconveniencing me, so I decided to punish your parents for your faults." and "We are going to discourage people from doing bad stuff, by PUNISHING SOMEONE ELSE."